Stealing Time

I rarely use the phrase ‘golden voice’, but on this new album from Newfoundland folk singer Matthew Byrne, his voice practically shimmers with beauty. Byrne is heir to a rich history of seafaring traditional song from his Canadian province, much of it made up of family songs, and here he dips into that repertoire to show its roots in the UK. He recorded the album in Sheffield with British guitar great Martin Simpson producing. No surprise that Byrne’s guitar sounds almost as good as his voice here, just rich, rich, rich with timbre. The poetry of the old songs on this album is deeply moving. In a particularly Shakespearean moment in ‘Lady in the East’, as a young man kills himself over the death of his lover, he cries out, ‘I’ll cut the tender thread of life, and with my love I’ll wander.’ These kinds of songs oft end in sadness and it takes a tender heart and voice to bring out these echoes of the past.